MTG Salvation

My Current List


This has been a joy to pilot, and while at first I hated Needle Drop I have really come to appreciate it. When I've lent out the deck that's the card I had to explain the most, usually the only one I had to explain (that and just how okay you have to be with blowing up your own lands). There is a hole in the sideboard, I used to play in an environment that allowed stuff that isn't common on mtgo but is in paper,and my local meta was heavy on discard, so I had Guerrilla Tactics in the sideboard for that matchup and it was usually devastating. Now I need to bring it into the normal meta and I'm looking for advice on the sideboard hole.

I prefer goblin fireslinger to the curse, he's cheaper and in case of emergencies chumps (which has been just the little edge I've needed in certain games). I understand the reasoning behind the curse (creatures, especially x/1 creatures, are far more vulnerable than enchantments), but I rarely see an opponent kill him, and when they do it's because they have electrickery or something similar maindeck for some odd reason (and that has happened 3 times with 2 different players and in all three cases i still managed to pull it out). Also the fact that he pings as an instant means more flexibility with the deployment of needle drop. Incinerate is where I would cut the 2 cards for the additional chain lightnings, unless you are running into regenerate a lot (and even then, that's what the sideboard is for).

Quote from BladewingX

Confound might work great to protect your stuff.

Confound is mostly terrible against burn. It stops searing blaze, but nothing other than that. Burn is WAY faster than any faerie build (especially a control oriented version), ergo it would be foolish for it to take the control role in the match up (in fact it's in the running for fastest deck in the format), and burn only spends cards on your creatures if it thinks you are faster (and you are not). It does stop searing blaze, which is a card that can really hurt you, but you are looking to stop maybe 4 cards? What you probably want is outwit, which is just worse in so many ways than BEB and hydroblast.

I'd make some room for rift bolts. More burn = more reach, and reach might be just the answer to your friend's deck, as you have a better chance to get the kill after he's stabilized.

Creatures for MUC need to either have flash or a cost reducing mechanic, and if it lacks those it needs to have the ability to dodge some amount of commonly used removal (since you won't likely have a lot along the lines of ability to protect it the turn you drop it). There are reasons why spire golem is popular, it's 4 butt and being an artifact creatures save it from a wide swath of removal, and it gets cheap in a hurry. Sentinels of glen elandra has flash allowing you to drop it dot and immediately untap so you can protect it. Mull drifter is expensive, dies to everything, and it's cost reduction mechanic doesn't keep it alive.

If you are playing against non-kiln fiend burn you cannot allow keldon marauders to stick. It's the biggest "burn spell" in that deck, but don't bounce him, that's just giving your opponent free damage. Also hitting needle drop is going to slash a hole in their tire pretty well because, while you only stopped 1 damage, you hurt their hand immeasurably, burn only sees about 10 cards per game, cutting off a draw is big dent in their plan. So when you counter needle drop you actually prevented 4-5 damage (1 from the drop, 3-4 for what they would have drawn).

If you're in red you can run rubblebelt maaka for uncounterable pump.

As a 1-2 of after you fill up on mortars if you really need that much creature only burn. And even then only in the board. It depends very heavily on local meta, and I am trying to figure out what a meta that pulled in homing lightning would like, and without lingering souls I am having a hard time other than to say the already stated "pack rats and soldier tokens", and those would have to be nearly ubiquitous to really drag this card in.

Much like the story of Icarus from whence this card is inspired, flying impetuous sunchaser too close to constructed will cause his wings to fall apart, and him to land flat on his face.

I like it in budget decks, and it's probably even playable in pauper if you found the right shell, but in competitive standard I really don't see a home for it. On the off chance that akroan conscriptor becomes a playable card it might be worth running, but even then it has some pretty stiff competition.

Here is my 2¢ on the subject, though it is somewhat tempered by changes in the metagame since I first penned it.

Why would you want 3 hammers, even post board? No one boards in their artifact/enchantment hate for them, and getting 2 is just terrible.

Lotus petal sounds pretty jank in MU delver. It will flip delver early every once in a great while, but most of the time it's just going to clog up your hand and basically be inherent card disadvantage. Outside of pauper it might be worth your time to try that hard to manipulate your delver flips, but that is just not going to be worth the effort in pauper. And it is definitely card disadvantage, especially considering most delver builds have a 50/50 chance at flipping delver turn2 without contrivance due to the high spell count that the decks it goes into have. Waste your time and card slots if you like, but do note that it is a giant waste.

I know it's only usable on the attack, but it Isn't like brute force gets used for much else, you probably won't even have the mana open on their turn.

I was mostly thinking of it in a morsel theft version, where being a rogue has value.